The Roots of Police Violence and Brutality

23 Responses

  1. legal eagle says:

    Oppression and tyranny only work for so long, and as long as the victims of it tolerate it; however it is a fact that at some point there comes a breaking or reckoning and the tables get turned and the aggressors become the subject of their own medicine, an deservedly so as they have willingly brought it upon themselves by allowing their actions to be deviant and cruel.

  2. John Karney says:

    You connected the dots between the early days ‘Slave Patrols’ and the present day ‘Police Force’. It is the same ‘force’ – a force to suppress and control the poor and pressed. That is what is behind all the atrocious behavior of the police.

    Shooting and killing unarmed citizens with impunity – tortures, and rapes, And, enjoy the hubris of Obama:

    “One of the things that sets Americans apart from many other nations, one of the things that makes us exceptional is our willing to confront squarely our imperfections and to learn from our mistakes.”

    Anyhow, so pleased to discovered this site – Thanks to The News Scouter: http://newsscouter.com/

    To all the readers: Visit The News Scouter. It is an amazing news aggregation site – what a contrast from the crap at ‘RENSE’.

  3. Kamal Naz says:

    I thank The Truth Seeker for guiding me to The News Scouter that, in turn, brought me here. A great find. It made my day.

    I have book marked both sites, News Scouter and Views and Previews.

  4. Mark Krawitz says:

    Rarely do we find such well documented, well argued, and well articulated essay. Great work!
    I am happy to have discover this gem, thanks to The News Scouter.

  5. “It was late into the 1830s that the idea of formal municipal police department – on the lines of police departments in England, first emerged in the United States. City of Boston was the first city in the US to establish the very first formal American police force in 1838. Following on the lead of Boston were; New York City in 1845, Albany, NY and Chicago in 1851, New Orleans and Cincinnati in 1853, Philadelphia in 1855, and Newark, NJ and Baltimore in 1857 (Harring 1983, Lundman 1980; Lynch 1984). By the 1880s all major US cities had municipal police forces in place – all on the pattern of the old slave patrols.”

    The slave patrols were the model in the antebellum South where all able bodied men mostly “poor whites” had to serve in the slave patrols aka militia aka “patty rollers” to watch out for run away Africans, monitor or break up groups of more than two or three congregating Africans and defend against perceived threats from Native Americans.

    When waves of immigrants (Irish and Germans) came during the early 1800’s in the North they caused numerous problems for the city’s leadership so they organized paid “peace keeping” organizations to keep them under surveillance and used violence as the prime means of social control. Origin of the Police.

    Crowd/population control/surveillance were their main functions and brutal violence was used to break up any threat or challenge to the status quo by slave insurrections, workers, trade unionists or organizers. That was the history of the police in the United States. Modern police departments still perform that role, they still function to protect and serve the interests of the ownership/ruling classes and violence is still their most potent tool/weapon.

  6. Afshin Nejat says:

    The roots are cowardice, greed, pettiness, and fear. Anger is the emotional byproduct, and the ability to feel it and act on it protected by the state.

    Apply this formula to all organized crime, and there you go.

  7. SNNNNN says:

    “Smith says that 90 days would be a good enough “cooling-off” period where public unrest should dissipate on its own.”

    Senator Smith is counting on the time honored short attention span of the wage slave, never
    fails. How many police executions already in 2015…lets just call the state sanctioned murders
    what they are shall we

  8. Pete says:

    “a fact of life in the West.”

    Yeah? It’s hardly any different in Russia, both in Imperial days and under the Communists.
    Not different under the monarchs in the UK and the Continent.
    Not different under the Spanish Empire in South Amer., Mexico and the Philippines.
    Not different in any christian country, ruled by the church in the past.

    Nor in the Middle East under islam.
    Nor in China under the Emperors, nor now.
    And Africa. Then and now.

    The poor people have always suffered the same

  9. Karl W says:

    Another of your thought provoking essay. Well researched and well presented. You have put the historical facts and connected the dots very well. Police of the present is the same as the Salve Patrols of the past. The only difference is that now we are the slaves – slaves with no guaranty of two meals and the roof over the head,

    But, since we are no one’s property, our lives are of no value. Police can use our bodies for target practice and for perfecting their torturing techniques.

  10. Amelie Watts says:

    Just a dream, but can you imagine, for a minute, what it would look like if police officers were trained in mediation? What if you called the police when you witnessed a violent fight; officers arrived ready to separate the parties, come to a non-violent resolution, and make sure each person got home safely.

    When it happens, it will be a free and democratic country.

  11. Scott Ville says:

    We are in a Police State. Police is a special class in itself. It has the license to kill. When they kill, and kill they quite often, the identities of the killer cops will be “sealed” from the public.

    Law Proposed To Keep Police Officers’ Names Secret When They Shoot People :

    Even though there have been numerous objections raised to SB 1445, the state Senate committee advanced a bill Wednesday that would keep the names of police officers secret after shootings.

    Law enforcement agencies would be permitted to withhold names of officers involved in shootings for 90 days after incidences of deadly force.

    The Tucson Sentinel reports that SB 1445 “would apply unless the officer is arrested or charged, a criminal investigation is complete, the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure require the release, or the officer consents to the release.”

    The bill was drafted by Senator Steve Smith (R-Maricopa), who said that his goal in writing the legislation is “to protect officers and their families.”

    “This bill came because we are trying to protect those who protect us,” he explained.

    Smith says that 90 days would be a good enough “cooling-off” period where public unrest should dissipate on its own.
    ———–

  12. Josh Slack says:

    We enslaved the rest of the world, and were very proud about it. We cheered the sufferings of other humans. Now, the same tyranny whose deadly deeds we were so pleased with, has turned the table on us.
    It is our turn now.
    We are being treated like the slave – rather, worst than slaves. Slave Patrols are now ‘watching’ us.
    It is called, Karma. Payback time.

  13. Jac Morel says:

    Scary! An eye opener to those who still believe that it is a ‘free’ and democratic country and that the “system works”.
    I especially admired your NO BS analysis – No, there is no way to reform the police – without reforming the whole system. – That means, installing a new system – a system of economic justice.

    And, don’t forget dumping the blood sucking ‘parasites’ in the hydrochloric acid first. There will be no just system as long as we are infested with the parasites.

  14. Rayan Cupp says:

    Police is running its own Guantanamo style torture chambers to break our limbs and to make us “confess” to the “crimes” that we never committed. Here is one curtsey of The Guardian. And, don’t think it only the Chicago police.

    Check out the good news:

    Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden ‘black site’:

    The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

    “Homan Square is definitely an unusual place. It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”

    On a smaller scale, Homan Square is “analogous to the CIA’s black sites,” said Andrea Lyon, a former Chicago public defender and current dean of Valparaiso University Law School. When she practiced law in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, she said, “police used the term ‘shadow site’” to refer to the quasi-disappearances now in place at Homan Square.

  15. Anonymous says:

    This article takes a rather helpless stand, as if the public should just quietly accept this.
    The public will not.
    With each passing day that results in rising anger against police psychosis, the payback that will come
    (and it is going to happen) will be too horrible to imagine. But yes, the revolt will certainly result in reformed
    police.

  16. brandi peters says:

    Most importantly, police chiefs across the nation are being sent to israel to be trained on how to most effectively abuse and control the population. We are all Palestinians now.

  17. Alan Deuchler says:

    A well researched article. You established the connection between the economic order and the police force very well.

    I consider myself a well read person, but the thought of connecting the “slave Patrols” of the past with the present day police violence never occurred to me. Now I can understand from where this brutality is coming.

    A great work.

  18. Jim Mora says:

    Is it another of those “scare tactics’? Police doing its best in the given circumstances. They have to use force when justified. This they do only to protect us. Ever thought what will happen without police?

    • Jean Hann says:

      To protect us! You must be kidding.
      Read this article again. It is well researched piece – check out the facts yourself. Does the police look like a democratic institution to you?

      Look around… what’s it look like to you? What about the 2,770 armored personnel carriers purchased by Homeland Security, which also bought 2 billion rounds of ammunition? Or the troop and materiel movements all over the country? Do you doubt for one second who will be on the receiving end of all that firepower? Or the 800 FEMA camps all over the country? Who do you suppose will populate those? Martians? So, they finally got what they wanted, absolute power unrestrained by law, and the total, “legal”, destruction of your rights and liberty. “Freedom and Democracy”, those worthy fables so beloved by the American masses, are dead, and have been for a very long time. Now it’s “legal.”  And before your eyes glaze over and you recite, mantra like, “Oh, that could never happen here…” read the whole “Martial Law” post. Guess what? It HAS already happened here…

    • Anonymous says:

      People would be forced to defend themselves.

      • Anonymous says:

        People may be forced to do more than defend ourselves. It is past time to nip this shit in the bud . We must reinstate our Constitution.

  19. Chris Harper says:

    Defenseless people have no right to defend themselves from the piercing bullets – Police has the right to pump your body with hollow-point bullets. You have no right to own any bulletproof gear.

    Here comes the Responsible Body Armor Possession Act to ‘Protect and Serve’ us:

    A new piece of legislation (H.R. 378.) was introduced in the House of Representatives, labeled the Responsible Body Armor Possession Act, which if enacted would deprive law abiding citizens from purchasing body armor.

    According to authors of the bill, bulletproof vests or helmets may prevent law-enforcers from doing their job properly. The bill may thus usurp people’s ability to own a truly defensive form of protection, with penalties for possession or ownership ranging from fines to jail time or both.

  20. Sam Denly says:

    Police violence and brutality against the public is only going to grow more. See below the bright brain child of ‘our’ Congress:

    Law Proposed To Keep Police Officers’ Names Secret When They Shoot People :

    Even though there have been numerous objections raised to SB 1445, the state Senate committee advanced a bill Wednesday that would keep the names of police officers secret after shootings.
    Law enforcement agencies would be permitted to withhold names of officers involved in shootings for 90 days after incidences of deadly force.
    The Tucson Sentinel reports that SB 1445 “would apply unless the officer is arrested or charged, a criminal investigation is complete, the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure require the release, or the officer consents to the release.”
    The bill was drafted by Senator Steve Smith (R-Maricopa), who said that his goal in writing the legislation is “to protect officers and their families.”
    “This bill came because we are trying to protect those who protect us,” he explained.
    Smith says that 90 days would be a good enough “cooling-off” period where public unrest should dissipate on its own.

    Now, police can kill without any worries. Welcome to the land of Free.

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